That frivolous young widow ought to have paid for the solace she declared so often she found in books. "I must read to forget." All very well, but sh… - William Darling

A cat is the ideal literary companion. A wife, I am sure, cannot compare except to her disadvantage. A dog is out of the question. It may do at a butcher's – it would be out of place in a bookseller's. A cat for a bookseller is a different creature temperamentally from the same animal at a fishmonger's or a baker's. In these shops the cat is a useful animal – I suppose it is employed to eat fish entrails or to keep down rats and mice – but in my shop its function is that of a familiar. It is at once decorative – contemplative – philosophical, and it begets in me great calm and contentment. (p. 48)

The world is so full of wonderful things that at this stage in its history there would seem to be no justification for aught else than that we should just wonder and give thanks. (p. 231)

Anarchism being immediately impracticable, let us have a government which governs as little as possible. Lord Melbourne's attitude of mind should be commended for imitation to all Prime Ministers. On being pressed by less wise members of his Cabinet to further certain legislation, he replied, "Must we really do something – why not let well alone?" (pp. 119–20)